Nature Conservation in Relation to a National Forest Policy

The scope of the contribution to the national economy and welfarethat has come to be expected from forests has grown substantiallythis century. Forest policy declarations in many countries havenot kept up with the times in this respect. A few countries have avoided inflexibility (e.g. Britain andAustralia) and have policy statements that are broad enough,or open-ended enough, to allow sufficiently wide interpretations,to accord with society's changes in expectations. In these countriesthe main problems are how to interpret the declared aims andtranslate the policy into operational terms. Forest policy is being interpreted in relation to nature conservationin Britain through consultation between the Forestry Commissionand the Nature Conservancy Council. Sites of high conservationimportance have been selected on ecological premises and conservationobjectives receive precedence when deciding their use. Future interpretation, with national welfare as its goal, willdepend on the development of wider criteria for nature conservationand other non-commercial aspects.